Vendetta

by Dreda Say Mitchell

  Detective Inspector Rio Wray.

  seven

  ‘Great . . .’ Mac whispered bitterly.

  The one cop he didn’t need on his back was DI Rio Wray. If she was the woman in blue heading up Elena’s murder, he was in big trouble. But the longer he sat here doing fuck-all, the more time Wray had to nail his arse. He needed to sort out his wound and then get the hell out. He strode to the mirror above the sink. Made himself stare at his reflection. Pale skin with a coat of grey, chestnut hair spiked in the middle with sweat-darkened strands stuck to his forehead and blue eyes deepened by a bleakness he found hard to comprehend. He gazed at the wound. It sat just over his left temple. And its shape . . . Mac’s heartbeat clicked into a double beat of disbelief as he stared hard. Pushed his head closer to the mirror. If Elena had defended herself when he’d attacked her – if he’d attacked her – the wound should have been scratch marks, the remnants of bruising from repeated slaps and punches. But it wasn’t. It was irregular, deep, more like a ditch, skin and some hair missing above the corner of his left temple. He’d seen that same wound once before, on a man he’d worked with one time. A bullet had whizzed across the skin of the lucky bastard’s forehead, cutting deep but not penetrating. Mac knew what he was staring at – a gunshot. In his line of business he knew all about bullets and guns. No doubt about it – someone had tried to blow his brains out.

  And that someone had murdered Elena, which meant that he hadn’t killed her. Had he? No, he affirmed in his head. He hadn’t done it. He had no reason to do it. But someone else obviously had.

  Who?

  The single question bounced around Mac’s mind as he poured the bottle of miniature vodka from the minibar over his wound. He gritted his teeth, holding the burn of pain back in his throat. He needed to repair the damage done to his head, even though he wasn’t sure how much damage had been done. If he went to an A&E he might as well walk into a police station holding a placard stating, in bold, black print, ‘I was in room 19 at the Rose Hotel.’

  As Mac searched the shelves above the sink, he realised that he’d been the victim of a variation on a classic set-up. A deadly frame-up that starts out sounding like the beginning of a joke:

  What happens to three men who walk into a room?

  One gets bashed on the back of the head and wakes up hours later.

  The second man is murdered.

  And the third . . . well, who knows what happens to him because he’s long gone after leaving a glaring piece of evidence that points to guy number one having murdered guy number two.

  The variation, Mac suspected, in his case, was that he hadn’t been bashed over the head but shot, left for dead. But with a bullet that had marked him but not lodged inside his body.

  He kept searching through the contents of the shelf while trying to imagine who would want to set him up. But the list was too long. There were too many people. Body wash. Soap. Moisturiser. Shower cap. Another bar of soap. A small package. He picked the package up. Flipped the top up. Tiny needle and white thread. He pulled them out. Doused each with alcohol. His hand shook as he started to thread the needle. The eye was small. He couldn’t get the thread through. He tried again. And again. Got it through on his fifth attempt.

  He tilted his head. Jabbed it in. His body heated up as he tried to push into the flesh. But his fingers slipped and slid against the liquid inside the open wound. A tremor started at his wrist. Flew up his hand until his fingers shook like those of a seasoned drunk. He tried to catch the needle in the skin again, but his hand trembled with a mind of its own. Angrily Mac yanked the needle out. Threw it in the sink.

  His rage boiled over. He picked up the stool near the sink and hurled it at the mirror. The glass cracked down the middle. The stool crashed to the floor, one of its legs breaking on impact. Violence pumping out of him, Mac marched into the main room, continuing his destructive rampage. He kicked the wardrobe door, toppled the bedside cabinet onto its side. Yanked the bedclothes in one vicious move from the bed. On and on he went, punching and kicking. He only stopped when his head was back, pounding in pain. He slumped to the bare mattress on the bed with his head cupped in his hands. He could deal with all the shit that had happened to him, but the one thing he couldn’t live with was the guilt about Elena’s death. If it weren’t for him she’d be alive today. And if it weren’t for the gunman who’d pulled the trigger. And whoever that bastard was, Mac was going to kill them. He was quite sure about that.

  Who?

  Mac came back to the single question again. There were plenty of people in his line of work who might want him dead, but why kill Elena? The more he thought about it, in as far as he was thinking at all, the more he felt that the only man who could have had a motive and could have tracked them down was Reuben.

  Mac pushed his head up. Tried to calm down. Pulled oxygen into his bloodstream. His wound was going to have to wait. Now in control, he got up again and went back to the bathroom. Picked up the torn piece of towelling and wrapped it back round his head. Returned to the other room. Mac needed to find out as much as he could about what had happened to Elena before he went anywhere near Reuben. And he possessed the one thing that might give him the clues to find out more – Elena’s phone.

  Back inside the main room, he pulled out the lilac, bunny-backed mobile. Switched it on, but that was as far as he got. It was covered by a password that Mac didn’t know. Elena had been the communication and techy person inside Reuben’s gang, which probably meant she had one of those complicated sequences of four-digit numbers for a password. But that didn’t faze Mac; he knew what most people didn’t – digital gear was usually the easiest type of equipment to uncover a password from. There was nothing fancy to it, no clever hacking needed. What most people never realised was that their mobile phone screen clearly showed the pattern of their fingerprints where they tapped their password number on the screen.

  Mac studied the black phone screen. Estimated where the numbers would be positioned. Then switched on the side light above the bed. Held the phone up to the artificial light. Fingerprints. They were smudged, but they were there. He estimated the unseen number they lay over.

  1

  2

  3

  4

  7

  0

  Mac stopped, realising that there were six fingerprints in total, two more than should’ve been there. He let out a low, irritated puff of air when he realised that his fingerprints were there on the screen along with Elena’s. Why hadn’t he picked up the phone with the edge of his T-shirt or the towel? No way did he have the time to find out a four-digit combination using six numbers.

  But he gave it a try.

  1708.

  The phone remained locked into place.

  1270.

  2347.

  7432.

  His finger kept tapping away, but the phone wouldn’t open. He kept tapping. And tapping. His head started screaming again. He almost threw the bunny-backed mobile across the room. But he didn’t. He had to get access to Elena’s phone. He didn’t know how. But he knew a man who did.

  A man who was either going to help him or slam the door right in his face.

  eight

  ‘OK, OK, calm down and tell me what the problem is,’ Mac told Elena over his mobile.

  But she didn’t calm down. She got worse.

  ‘It’s happening tomorrow night.’

  ‘What’s happening tomorrow night?’

  He heard her voice shaking with fear. ‘At eleven . . .’

  She was hysterical, her terror vibrating down the line.

  ‘Deep breaths baby, deep breaths – that’s it. Now tell me what’s going on tomorrow at eleven?’

  ‘I’ll be killed, we all will . . .’ She paused.

  That stunned him like a power-punch to the throat.

  ‘Who’s going to kill you?’ No response. ‘Who, Elena? Who’s he? Tell me.’

  ‘You’ve got to get me –us – out of here before tomorrow night.
’

  ‘Us? Who else is involved in this?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Meet me now . . .’

  ‘I can’t. It’s going to look strange if I just leave . . .’

  ‘Fuck that . . .’

  ‘No.’ Her ragged breathing shook in his ear. ‘Let’s meet later. The hotel next to the one we usually go to . . .’

  ‘No, Elena, I’m not dicking around with your life. Get here now.’

  ‘I’ll be there tonight. At nine. I’ll text you the room number.’

  ‘There’s nothing to be scared of. I’ll protect you . . .’

  ‘You don’t understand . . .’ Her voice kicked higher. ‘I’m not scared just for me . . .’

  She bit her words back.

  ‘Who else are you scared for Elena? Who are you talking about?’

  ‘I’ll tell you tonight. But Mac, we’ve got to get out of here. Book a flight anywhere. Brazil. Cambodia . . .’

  ‘Stay calm. If anyone even looks at you the wrong way, I will . . .’

  ‘Don’t say it,’ she pleaded.

  ‘I’ll kill them.’

  nine

  8 a.m.

  ‘All right mate – where we off to?’

  The sound of the cab driver’s voice snapped Mac back to the present and away from the last conversation he’d had with Elena. He sat in the back of a cab, the line of his spine soaked with sweat. He couldn’t get the sound of her voice out of his head; it was like she was whispering in his ear, right there now, next to him in the cab.

  The cabbie half twisted in the front seat and asked, an echo of annoyance in his tone, ‘Mate – are you all right?’ He gave Mac one of those stares he no doubt used on many of the stoned-out kids he picked up from clubs in the early hours of the morning.

  Mac set his features so his face gave nothing away. He told the other man what he needed to know, but as soon as the cab hit the streets, his mind stormed back into overdrive.

  He.

  Kill me.

  Eleven tonight.

  Elena had told him in their last frantic phone call about tomorrow night, which meant tonight. Eleven tonight. The words churned, their speed becoming hectic, frantic, as the cab zoomed by the gathering people on London’s streets, getting ready for another groundhog day at work.

  ‘Rough part of town you’re off to mate,’ the cabbie said conversationally.

  Mac didn’t answer. Instead he flicked his gaze up and noticed the older man stealing glances at him in the rear-view mirror. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He should never have got the cab so close to the scene of the murder. Should’ve walked a good ten minutes and then hailed one. Public transport hadn’t been an option, that would take too long, and he didn’t have time to burn if something was going down at eleven tonight. He’d really messed up. It wouldn’t be long before the police were asking taxi drivers if they’d picked up any suspicious characters in the vicinity of a gruesome murder in a hotel. Maybe they’d talk to this cabbie? Maybe the cab driver would talk to them? Who’d ever heard of a cabbie that didn’t talk? No way could that happen. Mac reached into his jacket and felt for his gun.

  ‘Shed-load of coppers around today,’ the man in the front seat continued.

  Mac found his Luger. Touched the handle. ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘They’ll probably want to chat to you, won’t they?’

  Mac leaned forward, quietly pulling the gun out at the same time. He kept the conversation going. ‘Why would they want to chat to me?’

  On the other side of the road, a police car went by at full speed, lights blazing.

  ‘You of all people must know what happened?’

  You of all people . . . What did the cab driver mean by that? Did he know something about Mac? Know where he’d been? Who he was?

  Mac started raising the gun.

  ‘What makes you think that I know anything about anything?’

  Mac curled a finger round the trigger.

  The cabbie took a sharp right, the lumps and bumps in the road shaking the car slightly from side to side.

  ‘I mean that you’re in the hotel down the road with a great view of what was going on. You must’ve seen the cops arrive and all that. There’s always some kind of argy-bargy going on around there. Probably a tart thing. That road’s full of ’em.’ As if realising his fare might be the customer of a ‘tart’, he began backtracking. ‘Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. I mean, we all like a bit of fun outside the home, don’t we . . . ?’

  Mac slumped back. What was happening to him? Had he really been about to brandish his gun at a cab driver? Steal his cab and drive off?

  He caught the other man looking at him again in the mirror. Suddenly the driver’s gaze shifted lower. Mac had forgotten he was still holding the Luger. Their gazes caught in the mirror again.

  Silence.

  Then the cabbie smacked his lips together and said, ‘You’re not lighting up in the back there, are you son?’ The older man’s eyes lowered back to the road.

  Smoking? Smoking indeed . . . ‘No, I’ve got filthy habits, but that isn’t one of them.’ Mac pushed his piece back into its hiding place.

  ‘Next, it’s traffic news!’ The cabbie’s radio became louder; pre-set to increase for traffic alerts. Mac realised he’d completely lost track of the journey and they were closing in on his destination. His fingers were white, as if he were still gripping the handle of the Luger.

  ‘M25 . . . Hangar Lane Gyratory . . . M4 into town . . . and we’ve got a police incident in Bayswater, where a number of roads are closed . . .’

  ‘You had a lucky break there, mate,’ the cabbie cut over the radio. ‘That was your road – another five minutes and you might have been trapped behind that tape they put up. Who needs that?’

  Mac said nothing, only speaking again when he got the cab to drop him a couple of streets away from his destination. He got out and paid. As he disappeared, a newsreader on the radio announced in the background:

  ‘Police are appealing for witnesses after a murder in a Bayswater hotel last night . . .’

  Mac strode onto a run-down street in Brixton, South London. Among the betting shops, pawnbrokers and cheap loan operators stood an old-fashioned English butcher’s. And next to that stood a blank door leading to offices above the butcher’s. The door was reinforced, painted grey and would have needed a SWAT team with all its hardware to kick it in. Mac checked the door and then the entry phone. No name. No indication of a profession, just a number. Six. For a brief moment, Mac’s finger hovered over the buzzer before he let it drop again. Ringing upstairs wasn’t going to get him anywhere, and he knew it.

  Instead he walked slowly down the street to see if there was access to the rear of the buildings. On the other side of the butcher’s was a wooden gate that led to the rear where the bins that stored the waste were kept. It was a sound gate but easily climbable. Mac looked down the street in both directions but he knew this wasn’t the kind of road where a man scaling a gate was going to attract much attention and, even if it did, he didn’t care. He jumped up and grabbed the top with his fingers, kicking and scraping his way up the wooden panels. With a heave of his upper body and flick of his legs, he dropped down to the other side. Wiped the resin and creosote from his hands, made sure his Luger was easily accessible and then walked to the rear of the building.

  The back door was open and he could hear music inside but there was no one around. He looked upwards. A net curtain flapped in the wind from an open sash window on the top floor. Next to that, a rusty Victorian drainpipe. Mac shook the pipe. It rattled and a small dusting of dislodged mortar carried on the wind from where the green metal pins held it loosely to the wall. After a quick look around, Mac reached up, dug his fingers behind the pipe, gripped it between his knees and began to carefully climb it, monkey style. Before he’d gone a few feet, the pins began to come away and the pipe swung and swayed.

  He was still low enough to drop back down, but he d
idn’t even consider it. He went on with patient speed and careful haste. Each time Mac hauled himself up another foot, he would pause while the pipe decided whether it had had enough yet and was going to come down. As the window sill of the open sash came within reach, he hesitated, as if in an attempt to dupe the pipe that the stress being imposed on its joints was finally over. As a final warning, a thick metal pin above him came away, bounced on his head and then fell with a clink onto the back yard below.

  Deep breath.

  He launched himself up, desperately grabbing at the sill. His fingers caught the mossy stone but he could feel himself slipping away. With a flailing leg he pushed his foot against the pipe, which finally came away from the wall and hung at an angle. But not before Mac had managed to get enough leverage to get an arm over the ledge and, gasping with pain and effort, his leg followed. Like a crab, he pulled himself in sideways and tumbled to the floor.

  His grazed fingers and knee stung. Muscles battered and wrung, but he had no time to lose. He stumbled up and across the room, which had files, papers and books piled high, and opened the door onto the second floor’s landing. Opened a second door and went into another room. An office of some kind. A large mahogany desk at one end with swivel chairs on either side of it. There was no sign of life, but Mac knew his quarry was around somewhere. He checked his watch.

  A couple of minutes to nine.

  Time was moving on way too quickly. Fourteen hours and two minutes to eleven tonight. The man who owned this office had to help him; it was his only shot at finding out what was on Elena’s phone.

  Abruptly Mac froze. Something cold was touching the side of his neck. Mac heard the distinctive sound of a gun’s hammer being pulled back. That’s when he realised what was touching the twitching vein in his neck – the twin rims of the muzzle of a shotgun.

  A voice growled behind him, ‘You’re very sloppy for an undercover cop.’